Within the next month or two, Im going to be looking into getting a decent printer. It needs to be able to print DVD cover, or Sega Genesis sized stuff (for Universal Game covers), so what do you guys recommend? I absolutely hate printers so.
I've been using a epson r300 for the past couple of years and find them to be excellent, print quality is very good, especially for photos and dvd covers, as well as the disc printing on it Plus the ink for them is very cheap as you can still get 3rd party carts for it.
Yeah, Epson are good. However, the R300 has been discontinued, and whilst the current R models are indeed excellent, they now have special technology to reject compatible carts. The original inks are expensive, and when you can get compatibles, they are now expensive also. If you do a lot of printing. it is worth finding one that'll take compatibles, and getting a CISS system. This is a tank that usually sits on the side of the machine, with a special attachment that goes in place of the carts. You then refill the tanks from bottles.
When haven't they?? A lot of printers are just very cheap. I remember when a cheap one was around £140. Now they're £30, and of a better quality! Replacement cartridges (originals) are £30. It basically makes the printer seem like throw-away technology, I know! Your cheapest solution is a CISS setup. The bottles are around £5-10 per colour, but you get so much more than a cartridge. Take my R265. I believe I'm lucky and got it just before they put the compatibles lock on it, although there are now compatibles for those. The CISS costs around £55, with ink. 100ml ink bottles cost £5 each. There are 6 bottles. The original Epson cartridges hold around 1.5ml and are £30-45 for a set. Compatibles are around £15-20 a set. So, you get 66 times the ink. Let's work out the savings: CISS + 6x100ml Ink £55 = 66 ink cartridge sets 66 sets of genuine Epson Claria ink = £1980 at cheapest 66 sets of compatible ink = £990 at cheapest That CISS would save me £935 on compatibles, or a whopping £1925 on original Epson inks! Now, a word of warning - there ARE cheap CISS kits which you don't want to touch. Likewise, there are people selling cheap kits at inflated prices! My suggestion if you want one is to read up on them, and try asking a few websites why you should choose their system. See what it is that is bad about the cheap kits (I forget, something to do with filling method which is messier, I think) and ask about that.
Just a fun fact: Ink is the most expensive liquid per ounce. I mean, almost $30 for a 17ml cart... common. I like the CISS kit idea though, I wouldn't mind getting one of those for myself.
The issue I tend to have with the compatible cartridges is that the ink just isn't as good. It seems to clog printers I've had much quicker than the original ones, but then that could just be my imagination. The bigger issue is that many compatible inks leave the page much, much damper and soggy (a major issue with full-page images) and aren't pigment based like the newer Epson printer carts are (so a drop of water or humid temperatures wash the ink straight off the page, and it fades much quicker). However, if you print a huge amount of unexciting, low-quality stuff (documents and office work) rather than photos and image-intense stuff, then compats offer a reasonable trade-off in quality for cost. On a side note, does anyone know who produces the DURAbrite ink that Epson use, and are there any compat companies that stock it?
May I suggest the Canon Pixma iP4500. Decent printer, very fast and good quality. I use mine to print photos for a living and I'm always looking for the best quality I can get. This does quite well although I think I expect a little too much from inkjet printers sometimes lol. Some reviews here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-Premi...stomer-reviews.start=1&colid=#customerReviews
May I suggest some chocolate. I ve been happy with my HP through-out my uni years. Got it for 50 quid brand new and it performed well up to now actually. Nothing stunning, but it's quite fast in draft mode for printing text and the image quality is also good yet slow when printing pictures.
So you've got a ton of different opinions on printers, all of which appear to be valid for their own reasons. Also think of paper. Cheap paper will make a good printer look like its printing with all the wrong colours or the wrong levels. Good paper will also allow a greater distinction among dark colours, similar to the way some TVs have better black levels. For paper I had always trusted Kodak, the company may have gone to shit in many different areas but their paper has stayed top notch. I'd welcome any other recommendations for paper too, as its a good chunk of the equation.
